Kicked off another quad project

… the Mix quad for Hazewinkel. We managed to get Lubica to row with Radek, Romana, and me. She is by far the most successful rower of us, with a 6th place World Champs Nottingham 1986, 5th place Olympics in Seoul, fourth place at the World Champs in Bled 1988, and 6th in the Barcelona Olympics, all in the W4x. Also, she is a very nice lady.

I offered her the stroke position, but she refused. In her opinion, mix boats should be stroked by men.

So from bow to stern  we have my lovely wife Romana, then Radek, then Lubica, and finally me. I was really looking forward to rowing bow or 3-seat, but no. I stroke again. :-/

We started with paddling, then added back swing, then half stroke, three quarters, full. That took us the first 1km of the warming up. Then we did a few 10 stroke intervals at increasing stroke rates.

We turned around and rowed to the start for the first 1km.

I dialed up a 1km in Crewnerd but forgot to start it, so I was rowing this one based on the Albano lane markers and don’t have an official time. This was a “feel” 1km, which I did in 25-26spm. It felt good.

1km of rest, then we turned around for another 1km, this time in headwind. This time I didn’t forget to start CrewNerd. I now use it with a “voice” start 30 seconds from pressing the start button. It gives the nice race prep feeling when you announce to your crew: “20 seconds to the start … 10 seconds … attention … ready .. go.” Better than just start it by the first stroke. From the standing start I lowered to 28spm, but the stroke rate crept to 29spm.

It was still sunny. The third 1km was a tailwind one, again rowed in what felt like a leisurely 29spm.

We turned around and the wind rose. The last 1km was a headwind battle into starting rain.

First 1km was unmeasured, the others were in 3:49 (headwind), 3:42 (tailwind), 3:52 (headwind). I take that as a steady improvement, because the last 1km was in much stronger headwind than the first one, and we lost just 3 seconds. The boat felt nice and steady and the 29spm felt like there was a lot of margin to go to higher stroke rates. I love quad rowing.

A technique cooling down in my beloved 17spm with very strong tailwind and rain. Arriving at the dock, we had to wait because everybody was trying to get in at the same time, and we let the kids clear the lake first.

parovkamix

We had lunch in the clubhouse. Lubica couldn’t stop praising my rowing … it was almost embarrassing, but I enjoyed it. 🙂

On Friday, Romana and I did a 10km steady state in the double. High wind, high waves. It was a useful outing because we managed to get our stroke together in the rough conditions.